WELCOME WHITE SOX!
1900: Playing as a Chicago team for the first time, the White Stockings defeated the University of Illinois in Champaign. Roy Patterson, who would go on to win 17 games during the regular season, was the victor.

HEY MOE! HEY MOE!
1931: The White Sox sold catcher Moe Berg to the Cleveland Indians. Berg played for the White Sox from 1926 to 1930. He later gained notoriety as a premier OSS spy who gathered high-level intelligence information on Nazi Germanyís top scientists during World War II.

GOLD GLOVER ARRIVES
1982: The White Sox dealt Wayne Nordhagen to the Toronto Blue Jays for Gold Glove third baseman Aurelio Rodriguez. Nordhagen played for the White Sox from 1976 to 1981 and was a valuable utilityman and pinch-hitter. The Thief River Falls, Minn., native hit a career-high .315 for the Southside Hitmen in 1977. In 1979, Nordhagen pitched in two games posting a 9.00 ERA with two strikeouts in two innings. Rodriguez hit .241 in 118 games for the 1982 White Sox. He left the team after the season to sign with the Baltimore Orioles as a free agent. Rodriguez rejoined the Sox for the final 22 games of the 1983 campaign. He concluded his 17-year career with two appearances in the 1983 American League Championship Series.

A RARE BRIGHT SPOT IN 1984
1984: The White Sox began the defense of their American League West crown by trimming the Baltimore Orioles 5-2 at Memorial Stadium. LaMarr Hoyt, whose last appearance in Baltimore was a gem in the 1983 American League Championship Series, tossed 7.1 innings and gave up two runs on seven hits with one walk and three strikeouts. He received relief help from Britt Burns, who went the final 1.2 innings for the save. Burns was pushed to the bullpen because of the acquisition of Tom Seaver. The White Sox took the lead in the first on RBIs by Harold Baines and Ron Kittle. The win put the Sox in first place, where they spent the last 2.5 months of the 1983 season, for the first of just three days of the disappointing 1984 campaign.

ROCKET GROUNDS THE SOX
1997: The White Sox fell to Roger Clemens in his Toronto debut 6-1 in the seasonís second game at the SkyDome in Toronto. Chris Snopekís RBI gave the Sox a short-lived lead in the second. Toronto tied the game in the second and then took the leadfor good off loser Wilson Alvarez with two in the fourth inning. Reliever Carlos Castillo, who spent 1996 in Class-A, made his big league debut becoming the youngest Sox pitcher to make his big league debut since 20-year old Alex Fernandez did it in 1990. Castillo, who pitched a scoreless eighth, became the first Sox pitcher since Scott Radinsky in 1990 to make the jump directly from Class-A to the Major Leagues.

ALLíS WELL THAT STARTS WITH WELLS
2001: David Wells turned in six strong innings in winning his White Sox debut in a 7-4 win over the Cleveland Indians before 42,806 at Jacobs Field. Wells, battling a stomach virus, limited the Indians to two runs on four hits in six innings. The stout lefty walked two and fanned three in improving to 14-4 lifetime vs. the Indians. Magglio Ordonez broke the game open with a three-run home run in the sixth inning. The Sox opened the season on the road for the 11th consecutive season. The game marked the return of Sox catcher Sandy Alomar Jr. to Cleveland where he had spent the previous 11 seasons. He was greeted with a thunderous pre-game ovation.

A GREAT START TO 2006 FOR SOX, THOME
2006: On an emotional and rainy night, the White Sox opened the 2006 campaign with a 10-4 win over Cleveland before 38,802 at U.S. Cellular Field. To celebrate their 2005 World Series title, the Sox unveiled their championship banner in a stunning pregame ceremony. In the rain-delayed victory, Jim Thome homered in his White Sox debut as the team beat Cleveland in the season-opener for the second consecutive year. Thomeís two-run homer high into the rainy night sky followed a sacrifice fly by Tadahito Iguchi, which gave the Sox the lead for good.

Editor's Note: Information for these entries is gleaned from the author's files, retrosheet.org, various Internet sources, press reports of the day, White Sox media guides and the many White Sox books written by the great Rich Lindberg

my5thbench

04-02-2008, 01:47 PM

I read a book about Moe Berg a few years bback. He was a true American
gem. He was an oddball who spent his entire life after baseball mooching off of other people. It is a truly entertaining read. He was a backup cathcher & backup is the way he preferred it, allowing him to spend his work days hanging out in the bullpen swapping stories, rather than laboring behind the plate.

Railsplitter

04-02-2008, 07:55 PM

Moe Berg was a member of the big league All-Star team that toured Japan in 1934. He was there at the request of Army intelligence, taking photos and even filming key factories and militaty installations.